The exciting extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
